My Home world !

Woke up early. Visited the Buddhist Temple of Lama in Beijing. It really was a wonderful place. Unfortunately, pictures inside the temples are prohibited. We saw the biggest buddha in the world. Really inspiring. After that we went to the Great Wall. It’s really a great place to visit. Like my sister said “I had a great walk on the Great Wall”. You can either go by cable car or on foot to the top. We went by foot. It’s really exhausting when the temperature exceeds 40° C.

After that we went back to town. And met a friend of mine. She showed us some kind of huge store where you can buy a lot of fake stuff (clothes, technology, shoes …)

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yTJcs_XQk0

We found some copies of the new iPhone 4 and the iPad. The copies are looking like the original ones but aren’t working like expected. I asked a spanish man who bought 5 copies of the iPhone 3Gs why did he buy those. He answered me that he hadn’t enough money to buy iPhones and that they wezre quite looking like the iPhone.

For the iPad I was impressed. The system is Android and it’s running smoothly. You can use USB memory because it has a USB port.

For the prices, you can buy a fake iPhone for 40€ and a fake iPad for 80€.

Another reason why Chinese people buy this is because the iPhone 4 isn’t released in China. And the iPad isn’t even announced.

I’ll be covering the opening of the Apple Store next week in Pudong, Shanghai.

See you there.

After that we had a great luck together eating the Peking Duck wich is vey good.

See you !

Today we visited the different palaces. It was really great. The Emperor’s summer palace, the Heaven’s palace and many others. Then we went to the restaurant for lunch. We had a great lunch in a small chinese restaurant. Then we visited the Olympic part of Beijing. The buildings are very impressive. And I can’t understand why it’s empty and never used now. After that we went on foot the Apple Store and some other shops. Like usual, Apple chooses some great places. It’s in a commercial mall and quite exclusive. I asked a Genius when they would get the iPhone 4 (showing proudly mine). He told me he didn’t know.

The prices aren’t really attractive in China. Even tough everything is build a few miles from there. The prices are similar to the ones that we have in Belgium. But Chinese love it. I interviewed a Chinese Young man and asked him why he loves his iPhone so much. He told me that the character input in the iPhone is really a good point. In addition to some other advantages he told me (quietly) that the iPhone is a great phone for getting pass through the Chinese internet filter.

If you’re wondering if I’ll be at the launch of the Apple Store in Shanghai the 10th of July, I’ll definitely answer you YES I will !

I took most of the pictures with my DSLR so they will be uploaded very soon !

I arrived this morning in Beijing, China.
Our guide picked us up at the airport.
We dropped our luggages at the hotel and went directly to the “Forbidden city” and the Tiananmen Square. I was quite impressed by the security over there. Inside the forbidden city, I saw a poor guy that was getting smashed down by two police officers. He was on the ground and the policemen were hitting him.

The visit of the places was really amazing. We really did enjoy the palaces in the forbidden city. It was much bigger than I thought.

In the evening we walked through the city and found a local market which was selling some chinese food. There again we saw some unjustified violence against a poor man.

This country isn’t still as communist as in the time of Mao. The trade opening in the 1970′s really changed China. There are much more cars than bicycle. This situation would have been surreal 30 years from now.

Although people in China have right to property since 2007, I heard in the streets a guy saying that the government “stole” his house.

There are a lot of improvements of the way Chine people live but I believe it should go a step further. Why are the media sources still censored. I have to use a VPN connection to access Skype, Facebook, Twitter and even some american news websites.

China is on the good way but has to continue that way.

The following pictures are showing :

- The admission chart to get in China

-Some pictures from the Forbidden City

And the successfully enabled VPN connection on my phone to pass through the restrictions on Facebook, Twitter, Skype …

Hey !
Just to let you know that I’ll be blogging from China the next two weeks.
This includes news from Beijing, Shanghai and Xi’An.

I’ll also be visiting high tech places mainly in Shanghai.

Thanks for reading

Hey there,

I’m leaving for China in a few days. I know it’s holiday but I’ld love to keep connected with the world.

Unfortunately the Chinese government bans access to a lot of sites. (Facebook, Twitter, NYTimes …) So how to stay connected ?

I configured a VPN. I got a VPN server at home. The concept ? While I’ll be in China, I will be using my server to access all those banned sites.

This is what it looks like on the iPhone :

Apple stated that this iPhone was the thinest smartphone on the market. I have to admit that that’s true. This phone is really thin. And also very powerful.

Since the Apple introduced the original iPhone back in 2007, they took a huge leap forward with this. It inside design is really brilliant too.

First significant change, it’s easy for the user to disassemble his phone. Yeap, that’s right. Changing the battery is only 2 screws away. And the battery is no more soldered ! There is now a connector which you can easily unplug.

Yes it’s really that easy. We can see that the battery takes a lot of space in there. It’s the only component we are unable to miniaturize. It’s really huge. It allows the user to use his phone intensely during 10 hours with a high definition display and multitasking !

The iPhone is now working with 3.7 V and a battery with 5.25 Whr !

And here is the camera. The 5MP camera shooting 5MP pictures and filming at the incredible rate of 30FPS with 720p HD. Don’t forget the LED flash and the noise-canceling microphone.

Processor speed: Goodbye Samsung S5PC100 ARM A8 600MHz. This iPhone is now equal with the Nexus One being powered by a 1Ghz ARM Cortex A8 core. Called Apple A4, sibling of the iPad processor. On this board you can also see on the left the Gyroscope ship with isn’t commercialized. It’s only build for Apple.

Other important piece here is the micro-sim card reader.

Communication Board:

Yes there are also a lot of changes on this. What’s new ? Single-chip GPS receiver (Broadcom BCM4750IUB8) for better signal and a multi-function chip (Broadcom BCM4329FKUBG – 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR and FM receiver ! You could be able to listen to the radio. Or streaming to the radio ?!? Crazy Apple )

Logic Board

Like you would expect it :

- Samsung K9PFG08 flash memory

-Cirrus Logic 338S0589 audio codec (Apple branded). This is the same part as in the iPad

-AKM8975 – newest magnetic sensor that promises to improve the performance over the prior generation.

-Texas Instruments 343S0499 Touch Screen Controller

-36MY1EE Numonyx NOR and mobile DDR

Original Teardown by iFixit

Now that you know what it is made of, enjoy your iPhone 4 ! Brilliant beast !

Just got my 50€’s Chinese Visa

This thing is a breakthrough device. Yes I really believe it.
It’s all based on small details that make this iPhone incredibly better than the previous generations.

First, a noise canceling microphone. This is really useful. It’s maybe not a game changer but interesting tough.

Another cool thing is FaceTime, ok it’s iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 for the moment. But Apple made it an open standard. This means that Android phones will probably introduce FaceTime in the next months. It’s far more advanced that the actual 3G calling.

Next point, Retina Display. This is the most accurate screen you’ll find on a smartphone. Far more interesting than having a AMOLED screen. This means the eye doesn’t perceive any more dpi. iPhone is now ready for iBooks. I’ld like to see a Retina Display on the iPad. But it will be quite hard to get a fast enough processor for such a resolution. And what could you use it on ? 1400p movies ?

Finally, the design is really cool. I remember Apple patented this external antenna technology which made people feeling dissapointed about the design. I honestly like the design.
A flatter iPhone will be a good deal for my pants. And the new glass is much more resistant. No more broken glasses !

All this seems good news.

And we do know now what the news iPod will be like. Retina display, new glass, A4 processor.

Oh yes and One more thing. Do you like that iOS name ?
That name was owned by Cisco but they licensed it recently to Apple. Honestly I feel weird seeing iOS 4 GM in the Developer Center.

To conclude, I’ld like to introduce the biggest loser on this new iPhone.
Samsung
They always built the processors ARM-Based for the iPhone. No more Samsung processor in the iPhone is a game changer contract.

Enjoy iPhone 4 !

PS: For Belgians it’s a dissapointement to get it only in July. Is this linked because of the contract with Mobistar ?

After attacking a South Korean warship, North Korea or should I say Kim Jong Il killed 3 chinese men at the frontier. Is all this maid up ?
It seems so stupid of North Korea. They are alone against all. I really believe Kim Jong Il wants a war before he leaves this world. Yeah in fact he’s in a bad shape. He’s preparing the next government of North Korea. But will that be allowed by the people ?
I don’t know

I don’t really know what they want (beside war)